WWD Time Capsule: Designer Isabel Toledo, in the Height of Her Career, Talks About Her Signature Comfortable but Fitted Designs

Originally titled “Toledo State of Mind,” this story ran on Jan. 31, 2006.

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Shoes first. That’s how Isabel Toledo gets dressed every morning. “It’s just easier that way,” says the designer. “Just like clothes, shoes can really dictate our mood for the day.” Unusual? Perhaps, but Toledo has never been one to take the conventional route.

In the 21 years she’s been in business, Toledo, 45, has established a line with a cult following. Her collections are known to be shapely and neat with discreet details that all make for an idiosyncratic take on chic. Never one to follow trends. Toledo determines her looks each season by assessing her current state of mind. “Sometimes I want wide pants, sometimes I want Jodhpurs,” says the designer, whose Toledo Studio is the most recent winner of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Fashion.

For fall, Toledo is feeling moody inspired by paintings that were done in 1989 by her husband famed illustrator Ruben Toledo (“imaginary Spanish Inquisition family portraits” is how he describes his works), the collection features sumptuous fabrics, many of them two-toned, worked to fit very curvy shapes.

“This collection is alI about dark shadows,” the designer says. ”But not ‘spooky castle’ dark. It’s more like ‘spooky forest.'” The “natural element,” she adds, is what keeps the line humble and approachable. “It’s very important to me that things be friendly. I like clothes that look like you’ve had them for a while.”

Toledo also strives to create clothes that are comfortable to wear regardless how fitted they are. The trick, she says, is to use the right fabric on each part of the body. “Form with flaws is how I would explain it,” she explains. “There’s a skirt in the fall line, for instance, that is made of a heavy tweed, but along the waist I used a lighter fabric in the same color combination. Not only does it make the skirt more comfortable, but it creates shape and dimension as well.”

When picking her fabrics, Toledo gives little thought to silhouette or theme. Instead, “it’s all emotion.” As she “dissects” a textile header, Toledo cuts tiny shapes right into it; the shapes are later placed on a board and her husband then completes the “sketch.”

“I like to see how a fabric threads, what the selvedge looks like, how it reacts to the scissors,” she says, twirling a red and black cloqué sample with her fingers. “The structure of a fabric is what makes it organic.”

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Indeed, treating and manipulating fabrics are a Toledo signature. For fall, she “built” a gold silk damask with gray undertones by backing it with chiffon, then married the two fabrics with a picot machine. “I start with a very drapey fabric, which is perfect for the top of a dress, but then I give it structure and architecture by backing it, which works well for the bottom of the dress,” she explains. “So, you have a playful, barrel-like bottom that stands away from the body with a softer, sensual top that moves with the body.”

Working in mostly nude, ivory, black and “elephant gray,” one of her favorite colors, Toledo forgoes a defined palette for fall in favor of textures via stitching, patchworking and pleating that she says create the shade and color. A fake croc-embossed black acetate is a perfect example: “It’s all black, but at a certain angle, when the light hits it, you see glimpses of silver,” she says.

That red and black cloque, meanwhile, will be cover-stitched or double-stitched to give it even more dimension. “It’s a very couture-like fabric,” Toledo says. “I plan on creating something with a military feel, something a bit more active.”

And for another cloqué — a richly textured wool and silk in gray and ivory — Toledo is feeling particularly playful. “I want to shape it into a big pullover of some kind,” she says. “Maybe l’ll rib it to really enhance the texture.” Leave it to Toledo to give even cloque a friendly feel.

Editor’s note: Isabel Toledo died of breast cancer at the age of 59 on Aug. 26, 2019.

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